William Doino Jr. Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (Templeton Press, 2016) In the world of religious scholarship, few men are as respected as Rodney Stark. He is a sociologist by training, and now co-director of Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. Among his best-known works are The Rise of Christianity: [...]
Russell Shaw Russell Shaw, Catholics in America (Ignatius Press, 2016) Who says Catholics don't have a presence in today's American politics to match the presence they once had? It all depends on which Catholics—and what version of Catholicism—you have in mind. As their vice-presidential candidate for 2016 the Democrats offered us Tim Kaine, a Catholic senator [...]
Rick Hinshaw Raymond Arroyo, Mother Angelica: Her Grand Silence: The Last Years and Living Legacy (New York: Image, 2016) In his previous biography on Mother Angelica, Raymond Arroyo brought us into personal contact with her extraordinary life. He took us through not only her remarkable accomplishments, but the seemingly insurmountable challenges she had to overcome in [...]
Thomas C. Reeves In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified world-famous Mother Teresa. On September 4, she will be canonized. Bill Donohue, long-time president of the Catholic League, examined the extensive literature on the topic and discovered nothing that directly supported Mother Teresa's critics. Donohue, as always, is careful with his research (the footnoting is extensive), [...]
Rick Hinshaw Sue Ellen Browder, Subverted: How I Helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women's Movement (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015) Over the years, others have noted the hypocrisies of the so-called women's movement, as its self-appointed leaders abandoned broad principles of equality for a radical feminist ideology. Now Sue Ellen Browder offers a compelling [...]
Ronald J. Rychlak Pope Pius XII and the Nazis: far too many writers have wandered into this fascinating subject without bringing anything new to the table. Many of the late pope's critics have simply repeated information that appeared in already discredited books and articles, but even some supporters have done little more than parrot earlier accounts. [...]
Rick Hinshaw George J. Marlin, Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2015) Bombarded as we are by daily news reports, we probably feel we know all we need to know about the unspeakable crimes being perpetrated virtually every day against innocent people – primarily Christians – [...]
Rick Hinshaw Guy Consolmagno, S.J. and Paul Mueller, S.J., Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial … and Other Questions from the Astronomers' In-Box at the Vatican Observatory (New York: Image, 2014) "Science is God engaging with us." Thus do Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno and Jesuit Father Paul Mueller challenge – most effectively, in "Would You Baptize an [...]
Rick Hinshaw Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Mike Aquilina, The Feasts: How the Church Year Forms Us as Catholics (New York: Image, 2014) While the feasts of the Catholic Church might "seem to be a crazy quilt of customs," they are in reality so much more than that – if we take the time to understand their [...]
RICK HINSHAW Naomi Schaefer Riley, Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2014) Naomi Schaefer Riley, in her weekly columns in the New York Post as well as in several books she has authored, has emerged as an insightful commentator on a range of cultural issues [...]
